The Moral Outlook of Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray文献综述

 2021-10-23 20:19:36

毕业论文课题相关文献综述

The Moral Outlook of Oscar Wilde in The picture of Dorian Gray

读《道林格雷的画像》析王尔德之道德观

1. Introduction

Oscar Wilde is known as the most significant and typical writer in his time since his works are considered to be the representative of the aestheticism. And he always declares that we cant comment on the art by a moral standard, and he insists that it is not the art that reflects nature, but it is nature that reflected art, and that the function of art is to produce enjoyment. In fact there is no literature that could get rid of moral judgement completely. As the most famous novel among all those works of him, the publication of the Picture of Dorian Gray has earned him a world-wide reputation. So far, this book has been discussed from different perspectives by people. This dissertation devotes its effort to explore the complicated relations between Oscar Wilde works and his moral outlooks on the analysis of the character in the novel. In the meantime, this thesis will reappraise his works from a completely new angle.2. Literature ReviewThe Picture of Dorian Gray is the most famous novel written by Oscar Wilde. It is the most successful full-length novel which represents aestheticism. The entire book conveys a theme: art for arts sake. Oscar Wilde had said that all art is at once surface and symbol. The whole story spreads with the idea of aestheticism from the beginning to the end. Dorian Gray, who has exquisite beauty, is the leading actor in this cruel story. He loves his appearance so much as everyone does. One day, a famous painter, Basil, paints a fantastic portraiture of him, whose beauty will never fade. Looking at the person in the picture, Dorian is jealous of his portraiture. In order to maintain his beauty, he sells his soul to the devil. After he kills his lover by accident, he discovers that the portraiture becomes withered. The truth is that the picture will suffer being punished because of dirty crime. After tremendous indulgences, Dorian becomes crazy and stabs the picture with knife in the end. However, he dies. The portrait of him becomes a wonder of exquisite youth and beauty again.The Victorian Era is an era full of contradictions. And the Victorian morals, which are obstinate and rigid, unavoidably show its influence while they dominate the whole society. As the representative adherent of the aestheticism movement, Oscar Wilde holds the revolted banner. He criticizes and overturns the traditional morals with a decadent attitude. He tries his best to resist the dark realty and to express moral thoughts in unmoral opinion. To some extent, the novel is a reflection of the contradictory triple personalities of the author: the three main characters, Dorian, Basil and Henry, faithfully reflect the three levels of Oscar Wildes personality-the id, the superego and the ego. And all the characters are created for expressing the authors critic attitude towards the society. According the Sigmund Freud, id, ego, and superego are the three divisions of the personality. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, regardless of the morality. The superego is the idealist part of the personality, which operates according to the moral principle. Both id and superego are the unconscious pars, while the ego is a conscious part and operates according to the reality principle. Dorian Gray, the protagonist who changes from an innocent youth to a degraded killers in the process of pursuing the sensual pleasure and eternal youth. Basil, who behaves as the conscience in the novel, is the best reflection of Oscar Wildes superego, and his final murder just symbolizes the sharp conflict between the id and the superego. Henry is the reflection of Oscar Wildes ego, which functions as mediation between id and superego. The contradiction between the three characters symbolizes the complex innermost being of the author. Life itself is an art, and the true artist presents himself as the finest work. In conclusion, The Picture of Dorian Gray is a revelatory novel full of unorthodox thoughts, the study of this novel shows great significance in awakening the consciousness of contemporary people. Through the mental analysis of the characters, this thesis finds that Oscar Wilde hides his ethical attitude behind the deviant words. In order to criticize the hypocritical community, the author create three different characters. All of the characters have strong symbolize meaning. In this way, the author express his pity and sadness for discontent with realities and the ruin of ideals, taunt and overturn the dirty social realities mercilessly, in a strong ironic tone. Although this novel gains extreme notoriety in many peoples eyes, it actually has an alarm effect.Nowadays, people live in an era of rapid development and fast pace. And there are three distinct processes going on in their head and there are in violent internal conflict. People often ignore psychological problems and the conflict between the id and superego and cause fatal consequences Many people could not deal with the conflicts between the avarice and the moral restriction, just as Dorian Gray. To conclude, it is an exigent mission of people to take the initiative to solve mental crisis.At the same time, this thesis has its shortcomings. Applying the theory of personality structure theory to the study of The Picture of Dorian Gray is a new insight, which excavates the hidden moral thoughts in the novel. However, it should deep understand the theoretical foundation and the law of the development of right of personality, and it is not enough to comprehend the personality of Oscar Wilde by simply studying The Picture of Dorian Gray. Many novel of Oscar Wilde such as Salome, the Happy Prince also have further research values.

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